


Communication Breakdown (or) Say Hai

by ledbythreads



Series: Plant Page Interviews [1]
Category: Led Zeppelin
Genre: 1980s, M/M, My First Fanfic, POV Robert, Slash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-16
Updated: 2019-07-16
Packaged: 2020-06-29 17:22:03
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 688
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19834981
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ledbythreads/pseuds/ledbythreads
Summary: At the start of the Page Plant Unledded tour Robert and Jimmy are interviewed in Japan





	Communication Breakdown (or) Say Hai

**Author's Note:**

> Note: Robert can be orientalist so I don't agree with all he says in the IRL footage or in my head. (you can watch the interview at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dN1QelMB210)  
> This can be read with a second piece called Goal set about a year later. It may become a longer series.  
> Say Hai and Goal are the first two pieces of fiction I have written in any genre - I live for feedback.

He hadn't meant it that way. He'd just meant they were too young then.  
Before he'd ever had his heart broken it was just a muscle in his chest.  
Of course he'd loved Jimmy - that was the least complicated thing about it.

They are endlessly interpreting again, the girl is good though, trying her best.  
Jimmy can't relax here at all, not keeping his end of the replies going. ‘Robert on vocals’ he thinks.  
It's hard enough trying to be funny and it getting repeated twice before anyone but the random American gets it.

He'd only meant to be sincere - it *had* been too big back then. Jimmy's being touchy about it.  
Flat faced.  
Jimmy flapping. Talking about *his* heart was always there, never ebbed.  
‘Well passion can be selfish, can't it, Jimmy?’  
He feels small familiar feather breath at the crook of his neck. Remembers. Makes himself relax his diaphragm. His empty hands. 

Please god let one of the Japanese know enough about Zeppelin to ask something really technical.  
‘Insha’Allah’.

His hand goes up to his chest.  
Cradles the air like a dove.  
He touches the threads between them, knotted up into this history they're selling.  
Tapping gently. Can Jimmy feel him?

Keep smiling, keep smiling.  
All the questions have two parts. Is that a thing here?

“What did they have then they don't have now” – “what do they have now they didn't have then??”  
It probably just sounded elegant in Japanese - it's just one of those questions a junior staffer would come up with.  
Keep it sage. Songs of Expereince.

‘What did they have?’ He had exactly everything till it smashed.

He remembers a gold sovereign necklace like his own personal sun against his chest.  
He remembers Jimmy laughing with it in his teeth, pulling him under.  
He remembers feeling like he could fuck the whole front row and then doing it.  
He remembers making Jimmy come, and how rough the tree bark was against his other hand, that time, and how dry the night was.

He remembers when he could circle Jimmy's wrist between thumb and forefinger and feel music under his skin, before all he could feel were the bones. 

He wants to spit out ‘then we had G and no fucking press, now I have your Mr Jimmy Page, able to breathe unaided no less’ Even if he can't sit still. 

Oh Jimmy, he's taken it as a veiled question about John.  
Deep breath. Be the Tarot Fool, keep smiling, keep smiling. 

They're in an extended piece now why it's just the two of them.  
'Because I wanted him all to myself' is exactly what he is not going to be saying today.  
It's nice though, being able to make all these asides during the translations.  
Jimmy is warming up a bit, sweating even, smiling up to his eyes when they whisper together.  
Jimmy's too uncomfortable to handle those kinds of in plain sight jokes though. Too soon.

Best keep it simple – ‘yeah right Plant - you've talked about the exigency of two-person creative control in the modern music industry context for 3 minutes already’. 

The girl is taking notes, bless her. 

It still feels automatic, the deflect. He wishes them back there. Even now, they don't expect men to explain why they spend day and night together.  
It’s just what men do.

Japan. It’s not a country he feels any affinity with.  
“You were here last year with that chap” he says. The interview must be near the end surely. Jimmy doesn't rise to it. Melts a little maybe even. Good.  
Now they're joking about planes, and the venues, and blah blah blah about new burgeoning audiences. I just called them virginal responses he thinks. Nearly laughing. 

Robert’s glad he slipped it in - about the chap - one open thing he can say.  
Now.  
Now he's back at the Hearthfire. This contractual circle of the coming year together.  
Handfasted. 

Jimmy played the piper this time, sure, but Robert Anthony knows how to make magic too. Earth magic, healing trances, Marrakesh, Cymru.  
There will be time, this time. To feel it with a whole heart.


End file.
